dahanese.com

Come out and Play San Francisco: Jericho - An Urban Spy Game

Last night Greg, Mike, and I traversed into downtown San Francisco one more time to partake in Come Out and Play San Francisco 2011. This time we were in Union Square to play “Jericho – An Urban Spy Game”. We knew this about the game: We would be picking up and carrying “spy documents” or defending and stopping spies carrying said documents, and we should bring a hat and a Nerf gun. As an added bonus, we were told that the person in the best spy outfit would win a “special Nerf gun”.


I’m competitive by nature, and really did want a black trenchcoat. However, walking into a store wearing a fedora whilst wielding two Nerf guns was far more embarrassing than I expected it to be.


We were a bit wary of the event after the previous night’s mall debacle, but the lure of Nerf guns is pretty much a Siren song to anyone who likes to play games (come on, you can’t deny it) so at 6:30 PM we arrived (and I was decked out in a double-breasted black trenchcoat, matching fedora, and red scarf tied to look like an ascot).

From the moment we saw the event’s coordinator, dressed in a full tuxedo, the game went from awesome to completely fucking badass.

Come Out and Play San Francisco: Undercover Capture the Flag

Last night, Greg, Cailin, Mike, and I went to Undercover Capture the Flag at the Westfield Mall in downtown San Francisco. We had really high hopes for this kind of subversive play: the game entailed you hunting down players on an opposing team and tagging them by saying "do you have the time?" No one in the mall was supposed to know you were playing and you were supposed to blend in - all the while looking for flags posted on walls throughout the mall.

So, that's what was supposed to go on, but let me tell you how it actually went down.

Journey to the End of the Night, 2011

For the past three Halloween weekends, San Francisco has hosted an event called Journey to the End of the Night as part of a larger Come out and Play festival. I learned of Journey from my friend Matt, who told me about it about a year and a half ago after he participated in one of these events in Germany.

If you want to learn more about Journey, go to www.totheendofthenight.com - and to hear about our experiences, keep on reading.

On streaming technologies.

So, if you know me, you probably know I really like video games, the Internet, and hanging out with people on the Internet and that I meet in the Internet whilst doing things that relate to video games (I, know, I know, it's shocking that with these hobbies I run community and social for a video game company. Shocking, I tell you.)

Anyway, a long, long time ago I was terrified of public speaking, so I joined Model UN in high school because I believe the best thing to do when you are terrified of something is to force yourself to do it. My first conference, I was timid, so the cond one I said to myself "the worst you can do is fail utterly and everyone will laugh at you. Then you will leave this place and never see them again." (motivational speaker I am not.) that tactic worked for me and I ended up winning a ton of awards and becoming president of the club - so I apply it in how I work when dealing with the public facing portions of my job, which are numerous.

While I might not like the sound of my voice, I do a lot of interviews and these days, at work, we have a robust streaming setup. So when Greg bought Dark Souls and told me it was soul crushingly difficult, I thought that I would buy it too (because I'm a masochist) and cord myself playing it for the benefit of amusing my friends.

Last night I did one better: using http://twitch.tv/dahanese I streamed myself playing the first hour of the game. Between people on Twitter and Shacknews I think I got something like 200 views (I use ustrwam.tv currently for work so I havent poked around with the twitch metrics - I would love to know how many poor souls were concurrently suffering as I played horrifically poorly.) and while streaming myself doing something personal in my home was slightly terrifying to me (not to mention I was purposefully putting myself in a situation where I would look dumb for the amusement of others) I had a ton of fun with the entire ordeal. From setting up the system (thanks Loiosh!) and learning that MacBook Airs are fucking amazing and can run a high quality stream of two cameras over wireless to having my chat room heckle me and steer me at times towards death and success, everything was awesome.

I understand now why Greg likes streaming his live D&D sessions. While he Likes being in the spotlight far more than I do, I'm not without ego, and so even if this is a situation where I am the fool rather than the rockstar, having a crowd to cheer and laugh and enjoy is really welcoming.

I knew when I bought Dark Souls that it wasn't my kind of game. I like beating on things, but I am terrible at learning to be defensive and subtle when slashing away at enemies in video games. That's one reason I love Borderlands, for example: group play and as Brick I could run in and bash people in the face with my fists while my fiancé (playing the sniper) laughed at me through his rifle scope. I also rally don't ke things that are punishingly difficult - I challenge myself enough in life - I like the option to drop a game to easy and cruise through it after a difficult day. Dark Souls has none of this, but because of that, it makes for an awesome game to watch me play, and it also is an awesome game for my to have a group with me while I play so perhaps I can make it to the end.

Okay, maybe making it to the end is overzealous, but I'm looking forward to being back home next Monday so that I can figure out how to make the image quality better and stream again. And not only that, I'm a lady thinking s out buying direct feed inputs to stream games from my desktop or direct from my consoles. I mean, if people will watch me and through the amazing connectedness of a live stream hang out with me, think of how many video games I minght playnthat I've previously set aside. Who knows, may e someday I'll play one I'm actually good at (although I'm sure the ones I am terrible at are far more fun.)

So I'm taking requests on what you guys want to see me play in the future and inviting you to watch me through the next week or so with Dark Souls. I think live streaming is awesome and have thought so since we started doing it at work over a year ago, but I never realized how much I'd enjoy it for my own personal use.

Thanks, Internet! You win again.

Spago, in July (yes, this is late).

In July, Cailin, Greg, Mike and I had a tasting feast as Spago. Somehow, all my food notes were lost to my iPhone, but I still remember what we ate (and it was delicious). We also had wine with each course, but that, unfortunately, I do not recall.

NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

Race!

I am playing around with Runkeeper's Race page. I'm making a run for Cailin and myself because that's awesome (and hopefully this will make you laugh Cailin, or at least smirk a bit) and this is the official website of that race.

SUPER OFFICIAL.

[Obligatory logo that I made because I am clearly an awesome graphic artist]

On social media.

Recently, people have been talking a lot about social media and, frankly, the term has quite the bad reputation. As someone who makes a living off things that include social media, I often jump into these debates and someone on the internet asked me to write up my thoughts on the topic. I have many thoughts, so I'm keeping this one general: I could go off on emerging media, experiential and interactive marketing, or even experimental marketing - likewise, I could rant for hours about the value of community and how it's morphed and grown immensely in importance over the past few years. But today, I'm keeping it simple, and I'm talking about "social media" as a generality. Consider this my starting rant (although I hope I'm not too ranty, or worse, preachy). If you like it, let me know if you want to hear more (and what you want to hear more of).

Enjoy.

a treatise on the woes of floral centerpieces

first off: i promise, this is nothing like a treatise. well, maybe kind of, sort of. but not really. hopefully, much less pretentious at the very least.

as you may know, i'm getting married next march. i have a semi-modern view of weddings and am not keen on excess, stress, bridezillas, and traditions that are stupid.

among those traditions i deem stupid are floral centerpieces.

The Last Jejuning

If you have not read my entry "What the hell is Jejuning?" please go here: http://dahanese.com/?item=767. It explains my past year or so with Jejune (which is an ARG that has been going on in San Francisco for the past three years.) Today, I participated in the final chapter - and now, I'm going to tell you about it.

on how i'm going to get to gold status on american airlines this year.

so, i'm sitting here in texas talking to my amazing felicia about how i don't know what time zone it is and how i should potentially go eat dinner, and it occurred to me how insane my travel has been and will be this year. i've already stated in the office i'm making this into a fun game and trying to reach gold status on american - but i might even be able to go beyond that.

let's sketch out what i've done so far this year:

JANUARY
3 days in Dallas, dev trip - (12, 13, 14) American Air

FEBRUARY
3 days in Vegas, event - (6, 7, 8) Virgin (folly! not reaching my goal!)
3 days in Dallas, dev trip (23, 24, 25) American Air

projected trips include:
MARCH
3 days in Ohio (7, 8, 9)
4 days in Boston (10, 11, 12, 13)
3 days in Canada (14, 15, 16)

APRIL
3 days in Dallas
3 days in Canada

MAY
OH GOD I THINK I DO NOT TRAVEL!

JUNE
3 days in LA (barely a trip)

JULY
3 days in LA (barely a trip!)
3 days in Canada (MAYBE)
***VACATION - potentially Australia, likely Vegas***

AUGUST
4 days in Seattle

I will also take one, hopefully two trips to NYC for my family - and I will probably have to take one or two short trips for another project.

Thank goodness I love my job, eh?